Delegating parental responsibilities on parental leave: opportunities for transformation[Делегирование Родительских Функций В Отпуске По Уходу За Ребёнком: Возможности Трансформации]

Introduction. In recent decades, despite the introduction of new economic measures to support families with children, a steady decline in birth rate has been observed in Russia. According to the researchers, negative reproductive attitudes may stem from the highly likely conflict between family and work, which families face after childbirth. A Russian demographic policy measure to mitigate this conflict could be the parental leave regulation. Despite the fact that the Russian labor legislation guarantees parental leave not only for mothers, but also for fathers or other child’s relatives, it is mothers, who most often use this right. Prolonged absence from labor market may cause difficulties for women on their returning to work. As a result, parents need to delegate parental functions to other subjects - grandparents, uncles and aunts, nannies or babysitters. The purpose of the research is to identify opportunities for parental leave system transformation as a demographic policy measure based on sociological assessments of delegating parental functions to non-parents during parental leave. Materials and methods. The empirical basis of the research was a survey of parents whose families for that time had the right for parental leave. 1000 people living in different federal districts of Russia were surveyed. Results. A rather weak parental functions implementation by other subjects was revealed until the child reaches the age of 1.5 years, with the need to increase the workload of grandparents during this period. Moreover, a need to delegate part of household functions to nannies and other child’s relatives was identified. Discussion. Applying several tools at a time can contribute to resolving the conflict between family and work among working parents - stimulating more active childcare involvement of non-parents (for example, introducing maternity leave for non-working grandparents or material compensation of their childcare costs), possibility to use childcare leave by two family members at the same time with a reduction in the leave period, active outreach efforts to inform population about the existing measures to support families with children.